My mom was right........

"If you want to stop being sad, stop thinking about yourself and start serving others."

I was in my 20's, having ex-wife trouble, girlfriend trouble, job trouble, health trouble when I called my mom at midnight, despondent.

The above sentence was her advice for me. At the time it seemed massively counter intuitive. How can doing something for someone else help ME with MY problems? What about ME?!?!?!

With urging I decided to take it. I found a nursing home to accept me as a volunteer and assigned me to an aloof, angry, lonely, wheelchair bound man. I won't go through the whole process and the years we spent together, but it worked.

I still have love for Bill in my heart and am crying now, thinking about when I heard he had died. I no longer lived in that state and went to see him while back visiting when I went to the home and learned the news.

Lately I had been feeling a bit of the same "me me me me me" type of thinking. I've enjoyed the week long of doing nice things for Super D's birthday and it got me thinking, making me receptive to something else.

Another friend K has filled what now seems to be an obvious void. Tomorrow I start volunteering again. Helping a newly "made" paraplegic with his new physical hobby. I was teary at the thought of it, so I knew it was the right thing, at the right time. For him and me.

My mom was right, if you want your life to be better, stop thinking about yourself and start serving others.